DESIRE OUTWITS MOTHER NATURE
As a fitting climax to this chapter, I wish to introduce
one of the most unusual persons I have ever known. I first saw him
twenty-four years ago, a few minutes after he was born. He came
into the world without any physical sign of ears, and the doctor
admitted, when pressed for an opinion, that the child might be deaf,
and mute for life.
I challenged the doctor's opinion. I had the right to do so, I was
the child's father. I, too, reached a decision, and rendered an
opinion, but I expressed the opinion silently, in the secrecy of
my own heart. I decided that my son would hear and speak. Nature
could send me a child without ears, but Nature could not induce
me to accept the reality of the affliction.
In my own mind I knew that my son would hear and speak. How? I was
sure there must be a way, and I knew I would find it. I thought
of the words of the immortal Emerson, "The whole course of
things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey.
There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall
hear the right word."
The right word? DESIRE! More than anything else, I DESIRED that
my son should not be a deaf mute. From that desire I never receded,
not for a second.
Many years previously, I had written, "Our only limitations
are those we set up in our own minds." For the first time,
I wondered if that statement were true. Lying on the bed in front
of me was a newly born child, without the natural equipment of hearing.
Even though he might hear and speak, he was obviously disfigured
for life. Surely, this was a limitation which that child had not
set up in his own mind.
What could I do about it? Somehow I would find a way to transplant
into that child's mind my own BURNING DESIRE for ways and means
of conveying